After buying Spelldancer (2010) today, I thought I'd buy Pandora's Wake (2015).
As you can see, Pandora's Wake was made last year.
The scan quality is good. Out of 196 pages, 195 are the content.
Art: seems good, with some fairly good CGI.

Apart from the odd typo, the PDF appears the same as Spelldancer in every way: Character creation, etc.

You WILL need pages 31-32 (Equipment) from Spelldancer, as there isn't one in Pandora's Wake that I could see, apart from weapons & armour.
That's why I've given it 3/5. It would have had 4/5 quite easily, but no equipment?
What happens if your character wants to climb away from some approaching other-verse monsters? Where will they carry there ammo, grenades, food, water, etc.
Twilight (GDW, 1984), was the first RPG I played that really emphasised equipment, although when I played D&D back in the late 70's onwards, they had their lists as well.
Equipment can not only help your character, but others in the group or other survivors you might meet.

Most of the equipment from the Spelldancer list can be used: grappling hook, rope, pouches, backpacks, canteens (bottles in Spelldancer), and other items from the list.

The other-verse monsters are quite good.

There are 10 melee weapon skills, and 12 projectile weapon skills. So, in Melee skills, if you have skill in Bladed, but not Hatcheting, and you loose your blade and can only find an axe, there could be problems for the character.
Pandora's Wake is quite good, and could be better with maybe the odd tweak here and their (equipment, skills perhaps).
Combat skills could be handgun, Rifle (SMGs, Riflles, Shotguns), Heavy Weapons, Melee, Unarmed. I've done this to my system to simplify/generalise the skills.

So players could keep the Melee & Projectile skills, or maybe house rule them.
The other skills in the other sections seem good.
Like Spelldancer, Pandora's Wake has no index or character sheet (so far); but, it's still good at the sale price, and worth trying.
Give it a look.

Scan quality: very good.
172 Pages, 170 are the content.
Like my own system, and quite a few other RPGs I've played over the past 30+ years, Spelldancer is a percentage system (which gives a wide range in skill talent, etc).
Prime attributes: Strength, Size, Agility, Perception, Luck, Willpower.

The Corporeal Spirits heading lists various types (Elf, Dwarf, Dryad, etc; but the one that caught my eye was the 'Boogie Man' (Goblin Zombie) - that made me giggle. The spirit takes over the Goblin husk. Worth reading that one (p119).

Humans: 8 phenotypes present on Elizium.

There is 2 pages of equipment with the weight of each item, but no cost? Am I missing something?
Currency: each kingdom/area of Elizium has it's own brass/copper, silver, gold coinage. In some parts, it's illegal to own coins from another part of Elizium.

Also covers various diseases and illnesses. Curses are also included.
Artwork: from various artists. Some very nice, others, OK.

After creating your character; you need to go to p155 to see how much money your character gets.
There's also a list of recent events on Elizium.

You get a full, interesting RPG for less than £5 (you can't fault that).
In comparison to Spelldancer; I purchased a well known RPG system last year (more than twice the cost of Spelldancer), that was a 'bare frame, with little covering, tiny bestiary', and nowhere near as 'full and detailed'.

The only 'niggles' I have are: No character sheet (but that has been nicely sorted out by Gethsemane), and the afore mentioned prices. Also, no index (a tiny niggle).
After reading Spelldancer; I'm very temped with Pandora's Wake.
Spelldancer verdict: It's on sale, an interesting read, it's worth getting.

Thank you for your balanced review Stephen. In retrospect an index would have been a good idea. I\'ll try and get one added.
The average cost of weapons and amour is included but you are right we missed out the cost of things like clothing, climbing gear and so on.
I tend to let starting PCs have what they like in that regard (within reason) and once play begins prices vary form place to place.
That said, I agree that it might be useful for us to have added n average price range in the rules. (One appears for some items in the \"Born in Flames: Part 1\" adventure, but it is not exhaustive).
I shall get to it and release a free PDF with average prices for those items when time allows.
Thanks again.

Vor-Laran is an interesting city, systemless and open to be adapted for any fantasy world, it does have its own character. If you have need for a city, or ideas for a city, this inexpensive product is a good resource.

Vor-Laran is an 18-page PDF systemless city resource for any fantasy RPG written by Bryan F Irving and published by Gethsemane Games.

After the introduction page Vor-Laran has a standard two column layout and is clearly readable. There is a full color map of the town at the beginning with a single piece of black and white art. There are a couple of typos in the book but nothing major.

Vor-Laran begins with a short introduction to the original setting used for the city and what some of the terminology used in the description means in that context (along with telling you to change what you need if that suits your campaign better).

It is a major city on the southern edge of a great empire, wealthy through trade and ancient status. Twenty-seven points of interest, including palace, markets, theater and college, in the city. Many of the locations come with an associated NPC. Additional information on the sewer and water system is provided (both of which are subjects that are often overlooked).

Six adventure ideas, each at least two paragraphs long, conclude the product.

It is an interesting setting, the empire is portrayed as fairly modern and progressive -at least in comparison to what proceeded it- while still having its dark sides and problems. But it can easily serve as a basis or inspiration for a city (or cities) in a campaign.

Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.

This is a nice piece of stock art for your collection. The horseman wears muted shades of green and purple, carries a wooden staff or walking stick, and is a little over-accessorized in the jewelry department. Although the pose is a little odd, this would make a good character or creature portrait for your fantasy, mutant, or scifi game.

Some recommended changes include reworking the hands/wrists/forearms and removing some of the jewelry.

This is a single piece of color art (in .jpeg and .tiff file formats) of a single humanoid horseman figure. The detail work is good, and the color palette is muted but sensible. While I'm not sure of the general usefulness of this piece of art, it is a well done piece. For a single piece of art, it might be slightly over-priced at $3.25, but that is more because of it's fairly specific usability. This art can add value to a project, and is definitely a piece of art that I would use if I had need of a horseman for a project.

I will keep an eye out for further pieces of art from this artist and publisher, however.

For a free product this is rather good, actually I'll go a bit further and say very good.

The 8 pages are bursting with horrible illnesses from the deadly to the inconvenient and it suggests quite a lot of research went into putting it together. More than one might expect for a free product. Then again I noticed the reference to the fact that the product is actually taken form the horror RPG “Haunts and Horrors” which I have yet to acquire (I'm told by those that have that H+H shows a lot of research went into it, so that probably explains this products depth, given it's short page count).

One or two typos have snuck in under the radar (I think – English is not my first language), but I don't find that a big problem.

Although it could be used with just about any game, some legwork will be needed by the GM to make it fit anything other than the Gethsemane Games Engine used in their RPGs. However, if you do play other GG games this is a good little addition. Personally I'll be using it in my “Spelldancer” sagas to good effect. Although Spelldancer has it's own disease section, and the rules governing disease, treatment and recovery (or failure to recover!) are the same, the actual diseases don't double up with the ones in the Spelldancer rules with one exception (Gangrene, although it is given a different name in the Spelldancer rules).

The product lacks much art, but for a free product that isn't much of a surprise – besides I print most my PDFs out and with ink costs here being so steep (oil is cheaper by volume) this is a good thing for me.

If you want to add the element of illness to your games, I recommend this product at least as a starting point.

To my mind Games of Chance is not one of the better products by GG, but then again it is free and it isn't all that bad either.

The product includes 3 games of chance, such as one might play in a tavern or gambling den. It includes a description of the games as well as how to use them in the Spelldancer RPG. Although the product mentions they can be converted to other RPGs, I think they are better situated within the Elizim setting, as each one tells you a little something about the culture that devised the game.

Whilst they are well thought out, I can't help thinking that for many RPGs, these “Games within games” are a little more time consuming and complex than is strictly necessary , but then I guess it depends upon your group and what they like.

Personally I would have liked to see them as an appendix to a larger product, perhaps in the Spelldancer RPG itself or in one of the promised Gazateers? Or even just on the GG website with some of the other free Spelldancer material that appears there.

With just 3 gambling games in the product I think there are other products on RPGnow that may be of more use to anyone wanting to fit some games of chance into their none GG games, but as a window into the Elizim background I find this quite interesting.

I'm quite torn as I sort of like it, and it is free, but can't see myself using it much and certainly not for games other than Spelldancer.

Secret of serpent tor is a dungeon based adventure for the Fantasy RPG “Spelldancer” by Gethsemane Games, but it could easily be converted to any % based RPG almost “On the fly”.

The adventure is based around a long forgotten cult of demon snake-people accidentally unleashed when the abandoned and ruined fort-shrine built to lock them away is plundered for stone by the local farmers.

There are two obvious hooks to bring players into the adventure – the first is the gold state that has been discovered – previously hidden (for reasons that are made clear in the GM background) under a layer of plaster – greed being a traditional RPG hook for most parties. The second relates to the farm hands who have vanished inside the caves. Intended to be set in the Empire, the motivation to help fellow imperial citizens is a strong one if the players are also playing imperial citizens – the mind set of the Empire being that they look after their own.

Regardless of how you get the PCs into the caves under serpent Tor they are in for a challenge. As is often the case with GG modules, part of the challenge comes from the environment itself, although this is less the case than with say “Sulphur pits", where the very air is toxic in places.

There are plenty of opportunities for characters to test their skills, just getting into the Tor complex itself resulted, when we played, in a complex game of cat and mouse with the patrolling Serpent-folk. Spelldancer combat being what it is (exciting and dangerous) “Getting the drop” on the enemy is hugely advantageous and as the PCs and the serpent-man patrol tried to sneak up and ambush one another it lead for a very tense and memorable opening sequence to the play session.

Once inside the caverns the tension was maintained as the serpent folk were now on their home ground and the PCs got the feeling of being stalked by a terrible foe. Don't get me wrong, this is an adventure that is not as sophisticated as “Trouble at the Troubadours rest” but as a dungeon adventure it is tonnes of fun!

Plenty of scope for expansion as well, with a “bottomless pit” that could easily lead to another level if you wished to add one, and a hook that could easily lead to many more adventures and problems long after the Serpent-men are a distant bad memory.

This leads me on to the next point and another recurring theme in GG modules – a reward that is a double edged sword. Whilst the golden statue that once sealed the cult in their subterranean prison is worth a nobles ransom, actually capitalising on it can lead to all sorts of problems. The weight alone makes it hard to move and it's value will attract every ner-do-well in the region. Set during the plains war when banditry is at it's height on the Imperial border region this is a very real problem. As the end notes point out as well, actually getting the statues value in cash will be a virtual impossibility and problems with the imperial authorities are also a real risk. When we played the adventure the party melted the damaged statue down into ingots in order to make it easier to dispose of. With all mineral rites belonging to the emperor, a party with a wagon full of unstamped gold ingots drew Imperial interest that resulted in a lot of explaining from the party and an entire sub plot sprang up around it.

Ideally the PCs should be of moderate skill level and experience, although as often happens with Spelldancer clever and thoughtful preparation can win the day. A modicum of sense and knowing when discretion is the better part of valour helps as well.

My one criticism, and it is a fairly smallone, is that compared to "Trouble at..." this is a far less sophisticated module it itself (although the aftermath can lead t all sorts of more complex fun). As a dungeon crawl though, it is nice!

All told a very fun dungeon crawl with far reaching consequences that can effect your PCs for quite some time to come. This isn't a “Fire and forget” adventure if yo use a party of characters you wish to use again.

Secret of Serpent Tor is another Demon hunting dungeon crawl from Gethsemane
Games for their “Spelldancer” adventure, but again, you could convert it to any
percentile based system with not much effort. The dungeon isn’t huge, but it is
big enough. Getting into it isn’t that easy as the snake dudes are watching for
intruders approaching.

The party could very easily end this adventure incredibly rich, as the gold
statue that is one of the main “hooks” for the adventure (the other being
rescuing fellow imperial citizens that have been taken by the snake demons) is
worth a fortune! At first i had my doubts about the wisdom of such a massively
valuable treasure, then I read the troubleshooting and “expanding the adventure”
notes and realised just how easy it is to make the statue more of a curse than a
blessing. It isn’t the first Spelldancer adventure where taking something
valuable can get you into all sorts of trouble down the line (remember the horse
in “Trouble at the troubadours rest?) and just holding onto the statue or
managing to sell it could become the centre of quite a long and very fun
campaign. Also, at least the demons in this one aren't as gross as Sulphur
pits. Snakies are quite cute, the demon maggots of Sulphur pits were ikky!

Sulphur pits of Nathazda is an adventure for the Spelldancer RPG but could be
easily modified to work with any percentile based system. This is not one for
inexperienced characters, but with the Spelldancer system you can create
experience characters right from the start. The adventure includes some sample
characters you could either use as NPCs or PCs.

Like other Gethsemane Games adventures part of the dangers the party will face
are from the environment itself not just from the creatures within. In this
case the creatures are demons and ewwww, some of them are gross! Demon maggots
anyone? The adventure also answers the question of what happened to one of the
missing Demon Lords of the Malmori, and in our game we actually found ourselves
making an alliance with it to defeat the demon we had come to kill! As usual
there are some interesting ideas for expanding the adventure.

At first glance it looks like a fairly short dungeon crawl, and it is ( about 2
nights play perhaps?) but then in Spelldancer you don’t want to be in a dungeon
too long as a few good hits will put you in a bad way, and believe me, in this
adventure characters are going to get hit sooner or later!

I loved the feel of this adventure and it was just long enough for us, any
longer and we wouldn’t have been able to complete it without coming out, healing
up and then going back in. your players should be prepared for the very real
possibility of having a character or two killed in this adventure, especially in
the final showdown.

Spelldancer is the fantasy RPG by Gethsemane games, set in their “Elizium”
fantasy setting (although you don’t need to use the setting if you have another
you would rather use).

Character generation is points based and the number of points you start with
depends on your age. Old characters get more starting experience than younger
ones BUT they also have more disadvantage points. Disadvantages are handled
differently to other games. Here you don’t buy disadvantages to gain more
experience points. Instead you start with one quarter your age in disadvantage
points you have to buy off or else you lose some of those experience points.

There are a lot of skills to chose from, but you don’t always need to roll to
check a skill when you use it. If the circumstances are ideal, you pass just by
owning the skill. You only roll if you are under pressure or circumstances
aren't ideal

Combat is skill based, and there are a lot of special manoeuvres you can use to
get advantages to your chance to hit, or the damage you do. The better you are
with a weapon skill, the more damage you are probably going to do, which I like.
Damage is handled by comparing your Killing Power to your enemies Resistance
Factor. Killing Power is made up of how much you passed your skill roll with
your weapon by plus any Killing Power Adjustment you have from your Strength and
that the weapon itself has. It is possible to score a hit then do no damage if
your final KP was too low - this represents the minor bumps and bruises. The
system also builds results like being knocked out, having your arm broken, being
stunned or knocked over and even concussed into the basic combat and doesn't
seem to slow play down much at all but adds a lot to the game play.

Magic is split into types, called “Arcaniums” and each arcanium has it’s own
spells that relate to an idea, like Necromancy (death magic), Vivamancy (life
magic), the 4 elemental magics, Dracology 9magic relating to dragons) and so on.
there is also a “minor” arcanium which you must learn before you can take the
specialist or “major” arcaniums.

The races of the game are very interesting. they are split into Wyrm kind
(several types of dragon), Beast men (that have evolved from animals), Corporeal
spirits (that are a sort of minor demon that takes on a permanent physical form,
Umbra spirits (demos that have to be summoned to enter the world), Undead,
giants and animals. Humans are considered beast men and get on best with other
beast men races. The standard fantasy staples like elves and dwarves are
Corporeal spirits which makes them feel more like the Elves and goblins of old
European mythology than the standard RPG interpretation. It also makes them
feel a lot more alien. Sprits have a hard time understanding death - because
they can’t die - they just go “home” to the umbra. This means even the
“friendly” ones are likely to kill you if you are in their way, because they
don’t realise what a big deal death is to other races. Demons are very nicely
done, they are quite flexible and the GM can use the demon creation rules to
create just about anything!

Magic items are also very fixable, and are built on a points system that lets
you make customisable items. Oh and the rules for mages creating familiars are
nice and flexable too. If I’m reading this right (and I think I am 0 there is
no real limit to how many familiars a mage can have. Be careful though, the
bigger and more powerful an animal you select for your familiar the fewer points
you will have to give it special powers. In our game we had a mage with 2
familiars, one was a cat the other a snake, and they had very different powers
and abilities.

I like this game a lot, and it is great for customizing and making it into what
you want. the setting material is really cool to, although I would have loved
to have more of it. The town of Tolar is a great place to get started, right
between the civilized empire and the wild, unclaimed lands to the south. the
town “feels” alive and is bursting with ideas. The culture of the Empire is
just different enough to feel like it wasn’t lifted from the authors favourite
period of history without finding it hard to get into.

Skills are percentile based, combat is deadly, magic even more so, a lot of the
monsters are quite powerful 9but not impossibly so). So if you like realistic
combat and percentile based systems this is for you, if you don’t, it isn’t.

Okay let me just say right from the start, I am now a Gethsemane Games sqeeing
fan girl. This game is now my favourite RPG of all time, even over their
fantasy game Spelldancer. A lot of work has gone into researching the mythology
of the creatures and the magical traditions in the game.

Character generation is very similar to Spelldancer (pretty much the same but
with more skills available). The older your character is when you start the
more experience points they start with – you use these to buy or improve skills,
spells or psychic powers. Be careful though, ‘cos the older you are the more
disadvantage points you have and you have to buy them off by either taking
disadvantages or sacrificing experience. Psychic powers are new – they didn’t
appear in Spelldancer but are a must for a Horror Game. The magic system is all
new too. Gone are the Arcaniums and the flashy magic of the Fantasy game. This
magic system “feels” more like a horror games magic system should.
Practitioners of magic much select a tradition that dictates what spells they
can and can’t learn. Each tradition has spells they specialise in – which are
the easiest to learn and cast, “neutral” spells which the practitioners of the
tradition can use but it cost more to learn them and you will not be as
efficient, and excluded spells, which practitioners of that tradition can never
learn. Spells aren’t the only things that mark out the traditions either.
There are other things that make them all feel different from each other. The
3 fold law of the new way wiccans or the way Zoroastrian magi lose willpower for
performing “Druj” (evil) actions with their magic.

The curses are neat too but are lifted directly from Spelldancer. The diseases
section is great, and with so many creatures that can infect you it is very
important.

The monsters are a mix of classic Horror beasties and some more obscure ones,
but everything is taken from real world folklore and mythology. On the besties,
the “preturnatural abilities” gives them a range of supernatural powers that
humans can’t learn.

Ghosts are very well handled as well, with fettered and unfettered ghosts, be
careful not to destroy a ghosts fetter till you are sure that is the right way
to destroy the ghost, ‘cos they get a lot more dangerous if you accidentally
unfettered one – that just lifts it’s limitations!

I love how flexible the game is and the way you can set it in any historical
period – although most of the art and the examples are Victorian.

Again, the layout is noting special but this makes it far easier on the printer
ink, although I could have done without the full page picture of the vampire at
the end of the vampire section which will just use printer ink I didn’t need to
use.

I like this adventure, I like that it mixes horror and fantasy, One thing I
would say right at the start though is that it might be for inexperienced
characters but I recon you need to be an experienced GM to run it. Not
experienced at Spelldancer, just experienced at being a GM.

I don’t want to give much away but the second part of the adventure needs a GM
who can add lib a lot. The bad guys are up to some thing but exactly how they
act and what they do depends a lot on what the PCS do. I’ve played this game
twice now and it was different each time. The first group got distracted by the
red herrings which was a lot of fun, and when they did figure out what was going
on it gave them a nasty fright. The second lot got the plot right away but even
that was cool ‘cos they had to figure out what to do about it.

The bad guys are realy well thought out too. They all have their motivations
and some of them are quite tragic. One of my groups refused to hurt some of
them and let them get away with what they had done when they found out why and
the main bag guy was dead.

The adventure is very flexible as well – like most Gethsemane Games products.
You can get to a solution in a lot of ways. You could just turn it into a
slugfest and fight it out, if that is what you like, but you can come up with
better ways to deal with most of the problems, all but one anyway.

That reminds me, I’ve not talked about the first part of the adventure. Like
other GG adventures, some of the threats the party have to face are in the shape
of the environment. A flood and a dangerous storm, a rickety bridge over a
river that is bursting it’s banks. Getting to the inn is fun in itself never
mind what happens when you get there!

This isn’t a long adventure, maybe 1 or 2 sessions, but when we played it they
were session we will remember for a long time.

I liked the trouble shooting bit as well that gives you ideas of how to deal
with players that throw you something you hadn’t expected. It’s not an
adventure that forces the Players to act one way it gives the tools to figure
out what to do if they come up with something you didn’t see coming.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the “Declavion Design” series. Even though
you don’t have to play this as part of the series, now I’ve played it it makes
me want to.

The details on the Twin Kingdoms are nice as well. It makes them feel real, and
the expanded info on the cult at the centre of the adventure makes you want to
use them more. A couple of new spells are also handy and I like the section on
expanding the adventure. Some of the ides I’d not have thought of and they let
you run games that have nothing to do with the cult but still feel like they are
tyed in to the adventure at the Inn. Who would have though a horse could get
you in so much trouble for example.

The layout is nothing special, and their isn’t much art, but then I don’t care
about that, if I want art I buy it. What little there is gives you the feel of
what is going on and I’d rather have the 26 pages of adventure and setting than
a bunch of pictures I’ll not use again.